1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tickets for playing games of chance. More particularly, and not by way of limitation, the invention is directed to a lottery-type ticket having a winner indication that enables a player to quickly determine whether the ticket is a winning ticket.
2. Description of Related Art
As used herein, the term “lottery ticket” shall refer to tickets for playing games of chance such as lotteries, bingo games, and the like, wherein the tickets include one or more hidden indications or symbols (indicia) for playing the game. To play the game, the player must uncover the hidden indicia by, for example, opening a pull-tab window on a break-open ticket or scratching off an opaque surface material covering the indicia. Break-open tickets may be known variously as pull-tabs, pickle cards, jar tickets, hard cards, bingo tickets, and charitable gaming tickets.
Lottery tickets are well known and widely sold, and typically comprise a sheet material of paper or card stock on which is printed lottery information and various indicia for the playing of one or more games. Break-open tickets are typically constructed by printing a sheet containing multiple combinations of lottery indicia thereon. This sheet is then cut into sections. The opposite side of this sheet includes prize categories, serial numbers, and the like. A second sheet containing removable pull-tabs or break-open windows is then mounted onto the card stock such that the break-open windows overlap and hide the lottery indicia from view.
It is known in the art to use different types of security measures to ensure the validity of apparently winning tickets. For example, it is known in the art for break-open tickets to use a different background color in the area of the indicia when the ticket is a winning ticket. This prevents a dishonest player from cutting out a matching indication from a losing ticket and pasting it into another ticket to form a winning combination. In such a case, the fraudulent ticket can be recognized by the fact that the background color is not correct or does not match for all the indicia.
As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,494,317 discloses a lottery ticket in which multiple indicia for playing the game must match in order to have a winning ticket. As a security measure, one of the indicia is printed larger that the others when the ticket is a winning ticket. This again prevents a dishonest player from cutting out a matching indication from a losing ticket and pasting it into another ticket to form a winning combination. In such a case, the fraudulent ticket can be recognized by the fact that all of the winning indicia are the same size.
Although numerous methodologies have been developed for security purposes to counter fraud, there are no known improvements to lottery tickets for speeding up the play of the game. Many players purchase lottery tickets in large numbers, and are interested in determining as quickly as possible whether each ticket is a winning ticket. With existing lottery tickets, however, the player must uncover multiple indicia on each ticket by opening multiple windows or by scratching off multiple scratch-off zones in order to determine whether enough of the indicia match to be a winner.
Additionally, many people purchase large numbers of lottery tickets to give to friends and family members as birthday or holiday presents. There is currently no way for the purchaser to know whether any of the tickets given to an individual are winning tickets. Thus, some individuals may be disappointed by having no winning tickets, while other individuals may have one or more winners.